Safe and Sound
by BreezeInMonochromeNight
Summary: Loki had found kindred spirit in Noelle, a Midgardian female, long before jealously drove him into madness. When she tries to reason with the demi-god when he's at his worst in Manhattan, she gets under the radar of both SHIELD and her old professor and friend again...who just happens to be an Avenger now. Past-present BannerxOC and LokixOC, ScienceBros.
1. Lost Souls

**This one-shot has become a full on story now. Hope you enjoy. x**

* * *

Manhattan had descended into chaos.

Monsters kept pouring from a hole in the sky, which had been a beautiful and clear blue only minutes before. The entire city had become hell on Earth. People were running away from the monsters, away from the explosions and fire.

All except for one young woman.

This particular tiny waif of a woman watched in shock and terror from the bookstore she'd been previously occupying, Norse books of myths she'd just bought completely forgotten on the floor.

Why was her long lost childhood friend – her _only_ friend – doing this? She'd been following the news of the events in Germany a few days prior, and that was definitely him.

Loki.

_Her_ Loki.

He was back. She knew she had to do something to at least try and dissuade him from his current violent course of action. She knew she'd probably fail; she knew that failure was in her nature.

It was likely a suicide mission, but she was willing to die trying to save him from himself. She was irreparable, beyond saving. Her death wouldn't affect anyone.

However, if something happened to Loki...

He'd given her reason to keep going, even after all this time. She felt as if she owed it to him, in the very least, to try and stop him. He wasn't like really like this.

She knew that deep down, he hurt like she did in a lot of ways. ...

That deep down, he'd never do anything to intentionally harm her...at least she thought so. She just hoped he'd remember her, as insignificant as she was in this world. It'd been over a decade.

The girl steeled her resolve, preparing to ease out of the shop and try and get as close to Stark Tower - to Loki - as possible.

Before she could move toward the door, however, the glass of the bookstore's front window that she had been pressed up against shattered after she saw a flash of light. The shockwave from the blast sent her to the floor, shards slicing in to her exposed skin and face. When she tried to move her left leg, she found that one large piece of glass had cut through her jeans and embedded itself in her thigh.

The pain was blinding, making her pulse pound against her ears. She forced herself up off the ground, glass still painfully stuck in her appendages, and began to make her way out (even if it was hobbling) into the streets to get closer to the demi-god.

Those...things...whatever the hell the were, were everywhere. On buildings, flying around the sky, chasing people down...everywhere.

She said a silent prayer for all the lifeless bodies lying in the streets, silently hoping that they met their untimely ends quickly and painlessly.

For the first time in years, her Catholic faith having been long since forgotten, the dark haired woman formed the Sign of the Cross and prayed for an easy journey for their souls.

How could Loki _do_ this?

The small woman carefully crept along wrecked and overturned cars, behind bus stops and under debris, inching closer and closer to the tower. Luckily, the book store was only about two blocks away to begin with, but the added destruction all around her and overwhelming possibility of death made the trek feel infinitely longer.

As she came a within viewing range of the base of the tower, noticed a clearing that would put her in Loki's eyesight from the platform he was on. She knew his senses were much more keen than that of any human's, so he should be able to hear her with ease.

He always had before.

She took a breath and dashed out into the clearing, hoping that her half baked idea would work.

"Loki! What are you doing?! Please _stop_ this!" Her already hoarse voice was strained even more.

Nothing. Her eyes started to brim with tears.

"Loki _please_! It's Noelle! You're _not_ like this!"

If the liesmith had heard her, and surely he had, then he was turning a deaf ear to her. She knew that those things were going to close in on her soon, and time was running out.

With tears falling freely now, she tried again. "Loki! I love you! Please _listen_ to me!"

The lack of response to that hurt, but she wouldn't give up.

As she prepared to shout at him again, though, she heard a shrill, robotic screech and felt a white hot pain rip into her side.

Her vision blurred, and the girl called Noelle collapsed, alone and forgotten. She could no longer find the strength to move, not even to clutch her burning side.

As she lay there dying, life leaving her body more and more by the minute, she squeezed her watery eyes shut. She filled her mind with warm thoughts of her old friend and the times they'd shared to block out the miserable chill overtaking her very soul.

She could tell the wound was a slow-yet-fatal bleed without looking, as the blood did not immediately soak her clothes and the pain was immense, yet there was no shock canceling out the pain coursing through her body.

_She felt everything._

She heard more of that screeching coming her way, and a strangled, weak sob escaped her lips.

It wasn't that she was afraid to die. She had made her peace a long time ago. But if this was going to be it, and these were her final few moments, she wanted to go without being tormented by those abominations...

...Or whatever was roaring so inhumanly and loudly, shaking the very ground she laid on as its footsteps got closer.

* * *

**This was originally just a bizarre head canon I had, and I needed to get it out.**

**If demand is good enough, I have an idea and could easily turn this into a past-present Loki/OC/Bruce Banner story. If it's not good, I'll remove it.**

**Let me know!**

**xBreeze**


	2. Kindred Spirits

**Special thanks to Archer83, Alerix Slynn, coia, Fran_cyPantsFrance, Phoenix's-Assassins, Eruruu4, and the guest for reviewing!_**

_**I hope this one is up to your expectations. :D**_

* * *

_Noelle Abbott had always been an odd child._

_It wasn't that she actively tried to be, but being a child so intensely bright as herself, eccentricity seemed to course through her veins. That eccentricity did not win her any friends, either._

_The small child didn't mind, though, spending most of her days playing her violin or just simply daydreaming; finding the animals hidden in the clouds._

_However, as the young girl sat at her window looking at the sky, she did not wish for friends at school to play with. No, that was not what she really wanted at all. Noelle only had one wish on her mind; one that she wished for every night on the same twinkling star._

_The tiny girl with shining green eyes wished for a friend from a world that was not her own; a friend that was from a world far greater than anything even she could imagine._

_Little did Noelle know that, sometimes, wishes do come true._

* * *

The first time Noelle awoke, she only had a brief, hazy view of the world before the feelings of intense pain came rushing back into her body with a cold shiver. The tiny woman felt as if she'd been to hell and back.

...And possibly a UFC match along the way.

If the pain wasn't bad enough to deal with on its own, the bleached white walls and ceiling were also doing nothing to ease her already panicked mind.

To top it all off, her mouth was so dry. It felt full of cotton, and her tongue threatened to stick to the roof of her mouth. She tried to swallow, and almost gagged at the horrible feeling of the motion. The tickling in her nose was also starting to annoy her badly. So, using all of her willpower, Noelle slid her hand onto her stomach and slowly up to her nose, fearing the worst.

She ran a hand over her face and discovered what felt like a wire running into her nose. Upon touching it and tugging at it a little, she realized that it was no wire, but a tube...

A nasogastric tube.

...that she realized was running down her throat.

With her already racing mind now in complete overdrive, with panic and terror giving her a burst of adrenaline she began pulling at the tube, intent on getting it out.

It felt as if she was trying to pull her stomach up and out of her nose. She coughed and sputtered violently, making her already broken body ache more and her vision blur further.

And, of course, her actions had to set off all of the equipment attached to her. She whimpered as she continued to pull, in hysterics over the situation and intent on getting as far away as humanly possible.

Her actions were in vain, of course. She quickly found herself pinned back down to the bed by strong yet gentle hands. She couldn't focus on the face of her captor, but she could see the soft purple of their shirt clearly against the white backdrop of the room.

It couldn't be Loki, right? The God of Mischief usually wore green, even when he occasionally donned 'Midgardian' clothing.

"Shhh. It's going to be okay. I need you to calm down for me. It's going to be alright."

Where did she know that calm, warm, deep voice from? It seemed too familiar. Loki had a very smooth, cold and mysterious voice...and this was anything but. Noelle could only whimper in response, wanting the tube out and wanting to be free of the sterile prison she was in. She struggled against the arms holding her, with the urgency to get away coming back in full force.

After all, if she was here, what had happened to Loki? She had to make sure her old friend was alright. That took precedence over anything else, in her mind.

"'Elle, you _have_ to _stop_! C'mon, you can't fight me!"

Did she head that right? Did they call her 'Elle'? Nobody had called her that in years.

It _had_ to be a trick to get her to comply.

With tears rolling down her face, she began to fight against the hands holding her once more, pulling some of the wires out of her body and causing the heart monitor to flatline. Noelle quickly heard yelling by the familiar voice that she couldn't make out through the fog her mind was caught up in, followed by a hard, prolonged pinch to her wrist that had been pinned down.

The world quickly began to fade in-and-out for the small woman, with her eyelids getting heavier and her already blurry world getting even harder to see by the minute.

She had no chance of getting away.

With one final, pitiful moan of distress, Noelle Abbott's eyes rolled back into her head as she slipped into unconsciousness again.

"Just relax, 'Elle. It's for the best. Don't fight it. I'm here for you."

* * *

"Still convinced you need to go back to Kolkata so soon?" Tony crossed his arms, waiting to hear the answer.

Bruce sighed deeply, wiping his hand under his glasses. "I should, I need to, but...I can't just leave her. Not now." He squeezed the sleeping young woman's hand reassuringly.

"You know you could leave her here and come back to the tower for awhile, right Banner?" Tony paused, looking around the sterile room uncomfortably. "You've been sleeping in that chair for two days. If I were you, I'd have hulked out by now."

The doctor shot the billionaire an exasperated look and sighed. "I'm _fine_, Tony. She needs someone here with her. I don't want her to wake up alone and scared. You saw what happened to her."

Tony could feel that his friend was leaving quite a lot out about his relationship with the young woman, and it made the naturally inquisitive genius even more curious. His fellow scientist initially did not seem to have any attachment to anyone. If he did, why would he have hidden himself away so well in India? "This is a good hospital with great doctors. They'll take excellent care of her. S.H.I.E.L.D's not gonna let her slip out of their radar, now that she's linked to you."

Bruce frowned. "That's exactly what I'm worried about. I don't want them _anywhere_ near her." He had every intention of keeping the agency as far away from Noelle as possible. Bruce also had no intention of stepping down as her primary doctor anytime soon, formal training be damned.

The billionaire playboy sighed, running his hand through his purposely messy hair. Bruce could be incredibly stubborn, when he wanted to be. Tony had learned that lesson well in the past week he'd known the man. "You know as well as I do that's not going to happen. Why was she even out there, anyway?"

The doctor looked down again at Noelle, features softening again. "I...I really don't know, to be honest."

"You don't think she was out there trying to get to you, do you?" Tony being Tony was, of course, going to play Twenty Questions. Bruce didn't know whether it was out of curiosity or boredom, but either way, he found himself with a slight headache coming on.

He did respond to his teammate's question, though, but not before tucking a sweaty strand of hair out of the small woman's pale face. She was still as sweet and angelic looking as he'd remembered.

God, he'd missed her. "I doubt it. She and I haven't seen each other in years. I'd be surprised if she even remembered me."

Without missing a beat, Tony responded with another question. "Ahh...that brings me to my next question. How _do_ you know her exactly? She looks kind of young to be an old flame or something."

The doctor sighed heavily, already knowing how Tony was going to respond. "I was her professor once upon a time, at Culver University."

Tony rose an eyebrow. "_You_ were a college professor? That definitely wasn't in the file."

Bruce nodded. "I actually _liked_ teaching, Tony. And I used to do research there before the 'accident'." He pursed his lips at the thought, quickly changing the subject back to Noelle. "We got to be pretty close. She's...a good kid. A really good kid."

Tony grinned. "Hah! No kidding. I really never took you for the student-teacher relationship type. Scandalous..."

"Tony." Bruce didn't like where this was going. Tony was getting a little closer to the truth than the doctor would have liked to admit.

"She is very cute, though..."

"Tony!" The playboy quickly subsided with his insinuations when he received a glare from Bruce. He could have sworn that he saw a brief flash of green in the doctor's eyes. That was enough of a warning to Tony for him to back down. The billionaire threw his hands up in surrender. "Easy, big guy. Easy..." No need to send Mean Green on a rampage today.

He'd never hear the end of it from Steve if that happened.

Not that Tony _actually_ cared what Steve thought.

_Not much, anyway._

His eyes rolled in annoyance at the mere thought of the ever-disapproving Captain.

"It wasn't like that, Tony. We were essentially kindred spirits, she hung out in my office fairly often and we'd talk about...well, everything. She's incredibly bright." Bruce found himself smiling slightly as Noelle lightly curled her hand around his. "But like I said, it was a long time ago."

Tony could tell he wasn't going to get much more out of Bruce on the subject right then, so he opted to change it. He tossed the duffle bag from over his shoulder onto the spare chair with a loud thud.

Bruce turned his head away from Noelle towards Tony. "What's that for?"

Tony shrugged. "I figured you hadn't planned on coming to the tower just yet, so I had Pepper gather some supplies for you. Changes of clothes, toiletries, some granola bars, stress ball, yoga mat, the works. Everything you need to stay calm and well kept, Big Guy."

The fellow scientist actually found himself chuckling at his teammate's words. "Yeah, yeah. I get it. Thanks, Tony." He gave the Iron Man creator a tired smile.

Tony turned to leave, glad he'd at least made the doctor laugh. However, he wasn't finished.

"Hey doc?" He called to Bruce over his shoulder.

"Yeah, Tony?"

"I don't know the full story, but I'd be doing the same thing if I were in your shoes." With that, Tony gave his friend a genuine smile, and left. The doctor appreciated the sentiment, happy that he had a friend in someone like Tony.

...Even if the fellow genius could be absolutely obnoxious.

Turning back to the dark-haired woman in the bed, Bruce looked at her critically. "You're going to make it through this 'Elle. I promise."

* * *

So I finally decided to make this into a story. This will eventually tie in with my other two OC works. Weeee!

I hope you all like it. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter! Reviews mean the world to me and and let me know what you'd like to see. ***Reviews also let me know if you all want to see more, and will make me update quicker***

Keep in mind I also write genderswapped!Tony fics as well as OC stories. So check those out as well, if you're bored. :D

'Till next time,  
xBreeze


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